


Fevered

by Anarhichas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Bed-Wetting, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarhichas/pseuds/Anarhichas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The loss of control of his own body is the thing Armin hates most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fevered

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Armin has a nightmare (or/and high fever) and wets the bed? Maybe with some EreAru - Eren finds out and helps Armin to clean up and change so no one else knows and he could try to comfort him if you go with the nightmare scenario. 
> 
> Any and all concrit welcome, thank you for reading!

Armin wakes in an instant. His thighs are hot. His whole body is hot but his thighs seem to burn with some wet heat.

The nightmare he’d woken from still plays in his eyes. He was climbing a tall pole and a titan was eating his feet, chewing away the flesh like a dog at a bone. It doesn’t make much sense. His thighs are still hot.

Hot and wet and starting to smell.

Oh. He’s pissed himself. The shame floods through him like a slap and Armin closes his eyes for a second, wishing himself away or awake, that this is just another nightmare he needs to escape from. He doesn’t, nothing happens but the spread of dampness, his own piss, on the sheets and his night clothes, the smell in the air and the itching, crawling disgust over his skin.

Armin sits up, squinting in the grey-scale darkness of the room. He has to do something about it before anyone notices, he thinks, shaky, panic beginning to creep into the edges of his thoughts. He can get new clothes and change the covers on the bed. He’s in one of the rooms that makes up the infirmary – there has to be spare clothes and covers around somewhere. Only it’ll have soaked into the mattress and how can he change that?

He’s trembling. His arms feel weak as he uses them to prop himself up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The titan in his nightmare had looked like Eren. Not Eren’s titan form, but Eren himself. That’s right – it hadn’t been a titan at all. Eren was chasing him, clawing at his legs, garbled words in a blood filled mouth.

Small children wet themselves. Adults might in extreme terror, or pain. He’d been sleeping. Armin swallows, throat sticky, wild, familiar hatred for his useless body making him want the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He gets up, feet touching the floor gingerly, and faints.

Armin wakes slowly, the blood pounding in his head and world spinning. His eyes are open but it takes a while before he can see the person crouched above him, face white against the black ceiling. It’s Eren, and Armin tries to push him away but fails when he finds his arms refusing to work.

Next he tries to stand, but his vision darkens and all he can hear is a strangely quiet roar in his ears.

Hands clinging to the pole, he was using the mangled stumps of his feet to climb.

Armin shakes away the dream. He can still feel the surface of the pole grind into the bones of his ankles. He still needs to clean himself up, except Eren has seen him, seen what a pathetic mess he’s made, and what’s the point now?

He wants to cry. He can feel the tears well up in his eyes, sharp heat and pressure. He’s already pathetic, and disgusting. Tears can’t do any more damage than what’s done already. His arm trembles as he scrubs at his eyes.

Eren’s hands are on him and Armin wants to shake him off, to sit in the dark on his own, but he’s so tired. His bones hurt like he’s gone through a beating. Eren’s peeling away his wet trousers, cleaning him with a rag and bucket of water that Armin doesn’t recognise but is too exhausted to care about.

"Go away," Armin says, but it comes out slurred. Eren doesn’t reply, only continues to wipe the rag over Armin’s skin, hands gentle. It feels nice. Cold, but nice. Armin realises something suddenly.

"Stop, you’ll catch my–" he blurts, then in perfect timing starts to cough, wet and hacking.

"Don’t be stupid, I can’t," Eren says. He sounds worried despite the insult, putting the back of one hand against Armin’s forehead. Armin doesn’t know what he’s doing but can’t help but think: whatever it is, he’s better at it than the doctors.

"You’re still too hot," Eren says, frustrated now. He goes back to washing Armin’s legs, making him kneel to reach the curve of his arse. Normally, Armin thinks muzzily, Eren’s hand where it is would be leading to an entirely different situation, but he can’t muster the energy right now.

Eren pulls new, dry underwear on him, like dressing an infant. Armin lets him, trying to help but with his swollen, slow hands mostly getting in the way.

Why is he so useless? He is weak, he is slow, he falls ill and needs to be tended to like a baby. Armin turns his head and rests against the rickety bed-frame. Eren was trying to pull him down, scratching fingernails, before he chewed the flesh off Armin’s bare feet. Armin picks at the dream like picking a scab. He was trying to climb the pole. Something at the top? He can’t remember why.

The mattress still needs to be dealt with. Eren is out of the room, having taken the bucket and Armin’s dirty clothes with him. When did he leave? Shame trickles up Armin’s skin as he thinks of Eren having to touch his mess. Why can’t he be more controlled?

The room is cold, biting at Armin’s flesh. He still feels like he’s overheating. He sweats. His shirt sticks to him. The greys of the room turn to black as Armin stands, hauling himself up with help of the bed. He can clean the mattress on his own, can’t he? Surely he’s not entirely useless.

Even the thin straw mattress is heavy, making his weak arms shake and fail. He slides it off the bed and it slumps to the ground. What can he do with it now? Are they cleaned? Where?

Eren comes back and pries the mattress from Armin’s hands. The ease at which he does so makes Armin want to snap at him, or perhaps cry more helpless, frustrated tears. Then Eren leads him to the next room and all but lays him down onto the bed there, already made. The material is cold against Armin’s skin. He shivers. Eren leaves, then after some indeterminable time returns.

Armin rolls over to face away. He doesn’t want Eren to see him like this, helpless as a baby. Unable to even control his own body in the simplest of ways. Why does it always have to be Armin who is the weak one, the one to be protected and helped when he can’t help himself?

Eren slides into the bed behind him, tucking his nose into the crook of Armin’s neck, one arm slung over Armin’s waist. It’s too hot, sweaty and stifling, but he can’t seem to make his body move away.

"It’s gross. I’m sorry," Armin mumbles into the pillow, the words an effort.

"Be sorry when you’re better," Eren replies. His voice is quiet, muffled and tight. "Just get better. Please."

Armin doesn’t have the strength to reply. He falls asleep, shallow and fitful.


End file.
